As President Obama prepares to make his speech tonight at West Point, there are a few things to keep in mind. A timetable for withdrawal is seen by the Arab culture as weakness--it says to the average terrorist, "All we have to do is lay low until they leave." That is why we still have a fairly large force in Iraq--the Iraqis are taking over their security, but we are there in case we are needed.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that John Kerry's Senate Foreign Relations Committee has released a 43-page report today saying that Osama Bin Laden is still at large due to the unwillingness of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to deploy more troops at Tora Bora in 2001. This is a somewhat amazing statement to make after President Obama has stalled for four months in providing General McChrystal the troops he needs. It is also something of a rewrite of the history of American efforts to capture Bin Laden.
According to a Washington Times article on July 4, 2006, commenting on a Richard Clarke book, "Against All Enemies." :
"Mr. Clarke's book is also a crucial complement to the September 11 panel's failure to condemn Mr. Clinton's failure to capture or kill bin Laden on any of the eight to 10 chances afforded by CIA reporting. Mr. Clarke never mentions that President Bush had no chances to kill bin Laden before September 11 and leaves readers with the false impression that he, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, did their best to end the bin Laden threat. That trio, in my view, abetted al Qaeda, and if the September 11 families were smart they would focus on the dereliction of Dick, Bill and Sandy and not the antics of convicted September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui."
I added the boldface type.
It needs to be mentioned that as Senator Kerry releases this report condemning the fact that we did not send enough troops into Tora Bora in 2001, we need to remember what he was saying at the time. The Wall Street Journal reminds us:
"In 2001, readers may recall, the Washington establishment that included Mr. Kerry was fretting about the danger in Afghanistan from committing too many troops. The New York Times made the "quagmire" point explicitly in a famous page-one analysis, and Seymour Hersh fed the cliche at The New Yorker."
John Kerry has taken so many stands on troop levels in Afghanistan it makes my head hurt!
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